


Cardboard Hennrietta

by A_Fantasist



Category: Raven Cycle - Maggie Stiefvater
Genre: (not the cabeswater kind), F/M, Light Angst, M/M, Minor Henry Cheng/Richard Gansey III/Blue Sargent, Minor Noah Czerny/Richard Gansey III, Multi, Panic Attacks, Vines, arts and crafts, entirely gansey-centric bc i love him, little bit of bluesey too, more Henry Cheng/Richard Gansey III than the other ones, my poor kiddo
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-01-22
Updated: 2019-01-22
Packaged: 2019-10-11 08:25:06
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,124
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17443385
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/A_Fantasist/pseuds/A_Fantasist
Summary: By the time the sun had risen, the temperature had dropped, Gansey had fallen asleep, and there was a cardboard Monmouth accidentally glued to the middle of the floor.





	Cardboard Hennrietta

**Author's Note:**

> I don't even know. I had feelings about some cardboard ok? It be like that sometimes

The first cardboard building that was constructed on the floor of Monmouth Manufacturing, was the Monmouth Building itself. 

 

Gansey was having a panic attack. Wasps on his skin. On his arms. On his eyelids. In his nose. In his ears. On his tongue. In his lungs. He couldn’t breath, only feel the buzz of wings behind his ribs. He couldn’t see, because of the moving masses of yellow exoskeletons making their commute across his face. He couldn’t hear over the buzz and hum that was burrowing into his head. He couldn’t scream because his mouth had been taken over. 

 

“ _You’re alive._ ” Noah had whispered, blowing a cool breath over Gansey’s face. “ _You’re alive_.” He had breathed against Gansey’s ear. “ _You’re alive._ ” He had put both of Gansey’s hands between his own. 

 

The coldness of Noah had broken broke the spell of the deep Virginia heat. Noah looked… sick. Smudgier than usual. His left cheek looked… no, it must’ve been a shadow. 

 

“Whenever my little sister would have a nightmare, I’d do arts and crafts with her.” Noah had said quietly.

 

So they had found some some glue and cut up the box from the new refrigerator, then had used the paint Gansey had purchased for the building to decorate it’s miniature. By the time the sun had risen, the temperature had dropped, Gansey had fallen asleep, and there was a cardboard Monmouth accidentally glued to the middle of the floor.

 

Gansey built Nino’s shortly after. Ronan had picked up a glow-in-the-dark magnet somewhere that looked exactly like the pizzeria’s neon sign.

 

Noah added the skatepark the next day, after they had mutilated a can of baked beans because there was no can-openers on Monmouth property, so Ronan had found a pair of wire cutters in his trunk and they had pried the can in half. It made an excellent skate ramp.

 

Gansey had been working on the downtown when Niall Lynch had died. 

 

He painted the roads when Ronan moved in.

 

He built the tattoo parlor when Ronan came home with his back covered in plastic wrap.

 

Ronan helped him build St. Agnes one evening. Neither of them had slept in far too long, and they were both in that spot of exhaustion where they needed a defibrillator or a good cry. But they were teenage boys, and Ronan was bad with words and Gansey was too good with them to be of any help, so they had sat next to Gansey’s bed and glued the walls of the church to the floorboards of the factory. The next morning, there was a real bell in the tower that hadn’t been there when Gansey had finally passed out.

 

When Adam began spending more time at Monmouth with them, he commented on the lack of Aglionby in the knee-high town. Gansey had began work on it immediately, and the between the four of them, it was nearly perfect. Ronan had even graffitied the inside walls with colorful descriptions of the classes offered and of the boys who attended. They all fell asleep before Ronan could spray-paint the front lawn onto the floor. The next morning, they didn’t understand why Adam was angry at himself for staying over, but he missed two days of school and came back with a limp and a purple stain across his jaw.

 

Whether it was conscious or not, Gansey built the courthouse and the police station that night.

 

Gansey built the hospital out of cereal boxes during the sleepless week after Noah had found Ronan with his wrists slashed. Ronan glared at it every time he was in the room.

 

By the time they met Blue, Henrietta was nearly finished. There was Boyd’s. Here was Dollar City. Over there was the Pleasant Valley Bed and Breakfast. The corner drugstore was in its place. And the Henrietta Electric Power Company was just there, down that street and to the left.

Gansey hadn’t realized it, but he had already built Blue’s house. He had been working on the residential areas for a while, and when Blue had come over, she had pointed at the house and said, “You forgot the fence.”

 

After that, she had helped out with the details. Gansey had had to pry the entire elementary school off of the floor, and replant it six inches to the left in order to accommodate two houses that he had forgotten. She made little trees for him, out of bendy-straws from Nino’s and tufts of feathers leftover from one of her diy outfits. They would talk softly over the phone while she was destroying her clothes and he was brushing modge-podge over the roof of library.

 

Then, Monmouth was broken into, and Henrietta had been ravaged. St. Agnes was torn neatly in half, the bottom still stuck to the floor, while the top was on the other side of the room. Nino’s had a footprint in the roof. Aglionby’s east campus had caved in completely. 

 

And then it was starting. And he didn’t have time to sleep or time to not sleep or time to not not sleep. And it was everything happening at once and time was a circle and Blue was underground and Adam and Ronan were magicians and Adam and Ronan were framing Niall’s murderer for murder and Niall was _dead dead dead_ and Aurora was _dead dead dead_ and Gansey was

 

_Dead._

 

_Dead._

 

 _Dead._

 

And Gansey was alive. _You’re alive. You’re alive. You’re alive._

 

And Noah was gone. 

 

Gansey was having a panic attack. Leaves in his veins. Leaves in his skull. In his nose. In his ears. On his tongue. In his lungs. He couldn’t breath, only feel the creeping of vines behind his ribs. He couldn’t see, because of the leaves covering his face. He couldn’t hear over the whispers of adulterated latin his head. He couldn’t scream because his mouth had been overgrown.

 

“ _You’re real._ ” Henry whispered, brushing a hand over Gansey’s face. “ _You’re real._ ” He said against Gansey’s forehead. “ _You’re real._ ” He put a hand on either side of Gansey’s neck. 

 

The steadiness of Henry broke broke the spell of the airless cabeswater breeze. Henry looked real. Realer than usual. His hair was soft and messy from sleep. Blue was still snoring beside them, the slats of the motel blinds casting bars of shadow across her. 

 

“Whenever I have a nightmare, I watch vine compilations.” Henry said, offering Gansey an earbud.

 

So they had taken turns holding Henry’s phone up until their arms fell asleep, then they flipped over and laid on their stomachs and held eachother. By the time the Blue woke up, the phone battery had died and Gansey had fallen asleep and Henry was sneaking back from the store with craft supplies.

**Author's Note:**

> find me on tumblr @blankinsidecards and yell at me if I made you sad


End file.
